Intimately Unfamiliar, an exhibition of new work by the fulltime art faculty of the State University of New York at New Paltz, presents a wide-range of projects in many mediums—from drawing and painting to photography, ceramics, sculpture, printmaking, and 3-D printing—using a myriad of technologies, on many subjects.

Robin Arnold, Upstream, 2016, oil on canvas, courtesy the artist

The breadth of this show, which presents work by over 20 artists, would suggest little likelihood of a common thread. But upon close inspection, one discovers that the work in this exhibition is connected by a tension that exists between recognizable objects, situations, places, and spaces and the startling degree to which the ordinary is complicated, fascinating, possibly misleading, and most likely unknowable.

Every artwork shares an interest in the objects, situations, places, and spaces that we encounter every day. Some works are rooted in community, others in family or heirlooms, and still others offer commonplace industrial materials as a starting point. These are touchstones that allow the viewer to make a connection while also serving as a point of departure. Each of these projects explores some new process or theme, sometimes literally, more often metaphorically. From there the ordinary is transformed, reimagined or reframed around the deeper truth that the familiar is a veneer concealing unexpected complexity. Put another way, these remarkable works invite us in, then send us somewhere new, giving a vivid experience of the Intimately Unfamiliar.